Mobile users surpass fixed-line

  • 2002-07-04
  • Agence France-Presse, VILNIUS
The number of mobile telephone users in Lithuania has risen to more than one-third of the population and surpassed the number of fixed-line clients, representatives of mobile companies said last week.

"According to our estimates the mobile penetration rate has risen to 34 percent," Omnitel Vice President Sarunas Klioklys was quoted as saying by the daily Lietuvos Rytas.

That would put the number of mobile phone users at 1.19 million people in the Baltic nation of 3.5 million people, about 20,000-50,000 clients ahead of the national fixed-line operator Lietuvos Telekomas, which estimated its penetration rate at 32 percent this March.

The country's second-largest mobile operator, Bite GSM, estimated mobile penetration was at least 32 percent.